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An unexpected and unsettling diagnosis of pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (pNET), a rare pancreatic cancer, brought Bill Settle from Corpus Christi, Texas, back to his hometown of Houston for treatment at MD Anderson Cancer Center.

Since MD Anderson's sole focus is cancer, our physicians have extensive experience in the therapies and procedures used to treat every type of cancer and to tailor the treatment to each patient. Our expertise brings many patients here, some from around the corner, others from around the globe.

While surgery kept Mr. Settle cancer-free for eight years, unfortunately he experienced a recurrence which took him down a new treatment path that was experimental at the time, but has now become the new standard of therapy.

Until May 4, 2011, pNET patients had one treatment option: chemotherapy that was highly toxic. Today, they can take a pill once a day that delayed cancer progression for an average of 11 months for those taking everolimus in the trial. This was a substantial improvement. Those who weren't taking everolimus had their cancer progress, on average, in 4.6 months.

The pill is Everolimus, an oral inhibitor of mTOR, which significantly prolonged progression-free survival among patients with progressive advanced pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors and was associated with a low rate of severe adverse events.